Tamulpur, April 25: Altogether 27 Ulfa militants bid farewell to arms in a surrender ceremony here in Assam’s Baksa district today.

“This is the fourth surrender since October. It is a fallout of the growing differences of opinion between the top leadership and cadres of Ulfa,” the GOC of 21 Mountain Division, Maj. Gen. Chander Prakash, said.

“Three major surrender ceremonies have been organised in the past seven months. In the first one at Tamulpur on October 23 last year, 33 cadres surrendered. This was followed by the surrender of 66 cadres in Guwahati on November 1 and that of 38 cadres on January 24 this year,” he added.

The militants today deposited a large number of arms, ammunition, grenades and extortion notes as they surrendered before Gen. Prakash and senior police officials like inspector-general (law and order) R. Chandranathan and deputy inspector-general (central-western range) G.P. Singh.

Gen. Prakash said all the militants who surrendered today were trained in handling weapons and explosives and were involved in several acts of terrorism.

Nineteen of the rebels are from Ulfa’s 709 battalion, two from 109 battalion, five from 27 battalion and one from the outfit’s general headquarters. One of them is a woman cadre, Padmakshi Deka.

According to Gen. Prakash, the surrender is another blow to Ulfa in Lower Assam where the outfit’s strength has “now dwindled to around 100”. The 21 Mountain Division spearheads the counter-insurgency operations in the area.

“There is an all-pervasive depression among the cadres due to complete absence of democracy in the outfit’s functioning and self-centric attitude of its top hierarchy. Today’s mass surrender reflects the growing disenchantment of the cadres and erosion of public support for the outfit,” he claimed.

Echoing him, Deka said she decided to severe her ties with the outfit because she was unhappy with certain “commands” of the leaders. She, however, refused to elaborate.

Deka, a resident of Chandrapur in Guwahati, had joined Ulfa in 1996. She spent seven years at the outfit’s general headquarters in Bhutan before she was arrested during Operation All Clear. She started working for Ulfa again after being released from jail.